galaxiafandomcom-20200223-history
Dalko Jungle
Taking up a significant chunk of Naruve's western seaboard lies the Dalko region, a place coated in a thick mixture of Earth-like and alien plantlife that defies weather, time, and the Wastes. There aren't many who dare to live in the Dalko; it is a harsh and humid place filled with all sorts of fancy diseases, strange carnivorous flora and fauna, and the Yuan-ti. But more worrisome than this is how the rainforest spreads. When the Federation conquered Scylla, they seemed to pop up all on their own without the need for terraforming, and despite numerous efforts to stymie their progress they've been growing at a slow and steady rate for centuries, overtaking a few more inches of sand every year. And the larger they grow, the closer the dangerous things that live within get to more heavily populated areas. Most of the civilized folk that live in the Dalko region do so in small townships hidden by extremely thick growths of plantlife. The natives- descendants of worst-case scenario survivalists, luddites, and panicked runaways- have never really been terribly friendly to foreigners, unless of course those outsiders can be useful to them. They are a paranoid and suspicious people at the best of times, and they have good cause to be. The Dalkan rainforests have been used on a few hundred occasions as a site for proxy wars between major nations. These conflicts have not only resulted in severely stunted development on part of the natives, but have consumed entire communities- the population of the Dalkan region used to be almost thirty million people, now there are less than eight million. These issues become further exacerbated when one accounts for the Yuan-ti. The Yuan-ti first appeared seven hundred years ago, when a huge population of refugee survivors was convinced to collectively sell their souls to a number of Abyssal and Hellish lords. Reborn through unholy taint as the Yuan-ti, they have been working to conquer the Dalko region, all who live within it, and their own numbers as long as anyone can remember. The snakefiends inhabit many ancient dwarvish and draconid temples and ziggurats both above and below the surface, where they plan their secret wars against the rest of the universe. But their battles are not only against the other mortal races, but against each other- a complex (un)holy war is being fought that is almost never seen as different cults and sects fight for supremacy over all the others. Were it not for their disunity, the yuan-ti would easily have the numbers and power necessary to make themselves a proper national power and pose a much more significant threat to the rest of the system. Fortunately for everyone else, it does not appear that they will achieve peace anytime soon, and so their actions against the other races are mostly limited to guerilla raids to steal resources and collect slaves for labor and sacrifice. There is only one social group which is particularly friendly to outsiders- the ones known as the Lost. Savage, tribal collections of humanoids that know the jungles inside and out. Descended of war orphans and child soldiers born of the conflicts fought under the forest's canopy, abandoned when those meaningless wars finally ended. The outcast were too many for the villagers and townships to take in- too great a strain on already limited resources. To survive they banded together and formed tribes, using skills learned through military experiences and luck to survive high in the trees, away from most of the dangerous wildlife. They learned that some outsiders are friendly through missionaries who came to try and bring them out to more civilized lands, though such people only ever succeeded in teaching them of faith and trust- it is not often that they leave their home, having a pretty fair understanding of how vicious the worlds can be. The Lost still prefer to stay in the trees, up where it's safe, but whenever new people enter their canopies they eagerly watch and wait to see if they are people like in the stories the missionaries bring- such people bring news, knowledge, and goods to trade, and are always welcome in a Lost community. Aside from the myriad dangers that the Dalko promises, it is rife with all manner of useful things. The rainforest is home to a number of rare and valuable plants which can be harvested and processed into valuable alchemical components, ingredients for medical supplies, materiel for spellcasters, and similarly useful goods. Furthermore, no other forest in all of Charybdis is known to house a unique plant known as the 'Corn Palm'- which does not grow anywhere else- a very large species of tree with a sweet smelling, corn-like sap that is prized for its use in biofuels. Even Scylla's second moon, Abraxas, with its treasure trove of extinct and alien plants, does not boast having Corn Palms, and so this regularly brings in xenobotanical experts eager to harvest the sap. Naruve Back to Main Page